After 25 years on the run, an Italian fugitive was arrested when undercover police tricked him into leaving his fingerprints on a vinyl LP of the hit ‘60s song, ‘Girl From Ipanema’.
As The Times reports, the 69-year-old Roberto Vivaldi fled Italy in the 1990s after being convicted of money laundering and fraudulent bankruptcy had been living under a fake name. The prolific fraudster had also decided to pivot careers and had been running a vintage record shop on the island of Isla de Margarita in Venezuela. Vivaldi’s sales took off during the pandemic, right around the time police reopened his case.
After authorities discovered his social media profiles and that he’d been selling vinyl records online, Interpol officers created a false identity and placed an order for some LPs including an early pressing of ‘Garota de Ipanema’ by its Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, which was re-recorded in English as ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz.
El día de hoy fue detenido en la isla de Margarita, por funcionarios de INTERPOL, el ciudadano de nacionalidad italiana: Roberto Vivaldi, quien presenta Notificación Roja, por la OCN de Roma. Por fraude, bancarrota, omitir impuesto y estafa pic.twitter.com/172DgSbxmd
— Carlos Gárate (@Carlosgarate14) March 5, 2021
When police received their copy of bossa nova jazz hit, it was covered in Vivaldi’s fingerprints.
“We checked the social media accounts of his family, friends and known associates and, using software, found some were in touch with a profile based in Venezuela,” said chief Alessandro Gallo. “They were all very careful when communicating with this profile, until an old friend of Vivaldi’s sent birthday greetings on a day which did not coincide with the date of birth listed on the profile.”
He continued: “When the records arrived in Italy we dusted the covers for fingerprints and found what we wanted — some of the prints matched Vivaldi’s. To get Venezuela to arrest him we needed more than prints, and since he was only selling online we still needed an address.”
The officers, still posing as record collectors, continued to contact the conman building an online friendship before meeting him in person and arresting him on the spot.
“When Vivaldi showed up at the restaurant for an appointment he discovered the Venezuelan police were waiting for him,” added Gallo. The fugitive now been extradited to Italy, where he will serve out his sentence.
Meanwhile, Vivaldi’s former industry has been under stress recently, with worldwide delays in the manufacturing of vinyl. Last year, reports emerged that Adele’s ‘30’ was partially to blame for the backlog of production problems, thanks to the 500,000 copies she’d had pressed.
Despite vinyl villains and production issues, fans are still investing in their record collections. Last year vinyl albums outsold CDs in the US for the first time in 30 years, with the biggest sellers being Taylor Swift, Adele and Olivia Rodrigo. In the UK vinyl record sales were the highest they’ve been in 30 years, with some of the biggest sellers being Sam Fender, Adele and ABBA, despite widely publicised issues with backlogs and delays.
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